Medha's charge against States: Says families are being forced to accept cash compensation
What is it that drives this woman, Medha Patkar, to spend her life with the unknown tribals of India - with the most insignificant, illiterate and poorest of human beings? Why does she fight for them year after year, against that near insurmountable nexus of goverment and megacorporations? She is 52 years old. She lives the life of a sannyasin - a renunciate. She owns nothing. She eats, sleeps and dreams with the tribals. Why? Maybe she has a heart of unbounded love. Maybe her love is too big to contain. She seems to have just picked up the entire neglected segment of humanity and put them all in her heart and taken the responsibility for their welfare. What was in it for her? Apparently, nothing. But if you study her life, you will find, she got hundred fold back from those tribals. They gave all their hearts back to her. She lays her life on the line again and again to stop her brothers and sisters from being displaced by the cold corporate machine called capitalism. Mega dams do not serve the poor. They benefit only the rich. We need hundreds of Medha Patkars with this unbounded love stepping forward to fight the cold concrete dams of capitalism and work to provide respect, dignity and economic rights to the noble millions of displaced peoples in India. God bless Medha Patkar!
The Hindu
NEW DELHI: The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) on Sunday alleged that the rehabilitation of the Narmada dam displaced families was getting "more complicated," with the State Governments concerned attempting to reduce the number of families that needed to be rehabilitated, to influence the Supreme Court case.
Pressure on displaced
"The Madhya Pradesh Government is also resorting to slapping false FIRs against our members to defame us," NBA leader Medha Patkar said here. "After our month-long dharna in Delhi, the State is blatantly and aggressively forcing displaced families to accept cash compensation instead of land-for-land under the Narmada award. Officials carry readymade forms on which villagers are being forced to commit that they are willing to accept cash as the land — which was never offered in the first place — was unacceptable to them. In violation of the Narmada award and the Supreme Court orders, the project-affected families are being told that if they do not accept cash, they will get nothing. This is the Government's way of showing the Court that rehabilitation is being completed. When the Andolan members intervene, false cases are filed against them," she said.
According to Ms. Patkar, attempts have been made to reduce the numbers of families affected between the heights of 110.62 metres and 121.92 metres of the dam, while showing 51,447 families to be affected at the full height of the dam. "The number of families affected below 121.92 metres is much larger than shown on record, as all adult sons have to be included for rehabilitation, on the date of the land acquisition for which identification is still on. All this is being done for the Court, not for justice," she said.
The NBA says there are 35,000 families that have been affected below 121.92 metres.
On March 8, the Narmada Control Authority permitted the Gujarat Government to raise the height from 110.62 metres to 121.92 metres, which is being challenged by the Andolan. Earlier, 48 affected families had approached the Supreme Court for rehabilitation as per the law.